The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (W W Norton & Company; 1998)

(^124) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
out the pain and misery around them with a silk and lace curtain.
Contrast the single-minded specialization of the English sugar
islands, which left so littie land for food production that it had to
come from the North American mainland or even Europe. Textile
manufacture would have been out of the question. And by the
eighteenth century, the last thing most British planters wanted was
to spend their days on the plantation. That was for attorneys and
stewards. One lived and enjoyed life in England. Call it division of
labor, of an inefficient kind.
Meanwhile the attorneys and stewards got rich, but they lived
shorter lives.